Based on a true story, THE GHOST AND THE DARKNESS takes place in Africa during the late 1890s and concerns two ferocious lions who killed 130 railroad construction workers in only two months. A pair of courageous men, no-nonsense engineer John Patterson (Val Kilmer) and rugged hunter Charles Remington (Michael Douglas), set out to shoot the creatures, known as the Ghost and the Darkness. Making their task even harder is the two animals un-lionlike behavior--they kill in tandem, attack in the daylight, and show no fear of anything. Soon the hunters become the hunted.
cast
Michael Douglas as Charles Remington Val Kilmer as Col. John Henry Patterson
quote
Helena Patterson: You build bridges, John. You have to go where the rivers are.
I've heard it called "JAWS with claws" and that's a fair summation of the plot, though that tag line does little to quantify quality. Director Stephen Hopkins (BLOWN AWAY, PREDATOR 2) and screenwriter William Goldman (MAVERICK, MISERY) would have you believe that this is an epic historical drama about man against nature, based on what really happened in Africa to the railroad workers trying to build a bridge to the 20th Century. They've stacked the deck with two big stars (Val Kilmer, Michael Douglas), a bigger production design, beautiful photography (by Academy Award winner Vilmos Zsigmond), and a score so overblown that it makes THE LION KING soundtrack sound like chamber music. The movie doesn't make a lick of sense, though, either as an epic or as your basic boo-fest. In fact, some of the bits are so laughably ludicrous that you may think you've stumbled into the sequel to MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000: THE MOVIE. How about the three guys with rifles, who trap a lion and then can't even hit the damned thing? Or the ham-on-wry acting of Michael Douglas, who chews more scenery than the animals ever do?? Or, my favorite, lions so agile that they can even climb onto rooftops?!?
